By Julio Godoy
Inter Press Service
March 22, 2002
PARIS, Mar 22 (IPS)
Two major French private companies, Vivendi
and
Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux, are part of the driving force behind the
controversial privatisation of water world wide, according to the
firms'
own figures.
Vivendi Water calls itself "the world's leading provider of
outsourced
and privatised water and waste water treatment services and
systems", a
characterisation that Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux also applies for
itself.
While Vivendi claims to have 110 million customers in more than
100
countries all over the world, Suez affirms to supply water to 115
million people in 130 countries in five continents.
This expansion is the result of an aggressive strategy that has
led
both companies to obtain contracts to supply and treat water in
the
whole world.
In recent weeks, Suez obtained contracts in Shanghai, in the
People's
republic of China, and in Senegal and Burkina Faso. Vivendi has
expanded
in Northern and Eastern Europe, with several contracts in Poland,
the
Czech Republic, Germany and Sweden.
And yet, leaders of both firms impassively proclaim that
''water is not a
merchandise.''
Gerard Mestrallet, Chief Executive Officer of Suez, said this
in Paris
this week during the
company's preparations to celebrate the World Water Day on Friday.
Immediately after the events of Sept 11, Mestrallet had urged
the
leaders of the northern world to ''provide water to the whole
world.''
''Drinking water must be available for every inhabitant of our
planet as
soon as possible as water is a key for development and peace,'' he
said.
Mestrallet now goes even beyond that. He condemns the
privatisation of
water, because ''it forces the poorest of the world to pay twice
for
water.''
''When water is privatised, the enterprises that take over the
water
supply don't invest in the renewal of the infrastructure,'' he
explains.
"That worsens the quality of water supplied - and additionally,
the
prices increase."
Therefore, Mestrallet says, "co-operation between the private
sector and
the state is the best solution to manage water." The
infrastructure
should remain in public hands, and only the service should be
privatised, he adds.
Suez has been following this strategy in Santiago de Chile, La
Paz,
Bolivia, in Mexico City, in New Delhi, Gaza, in Palestine, and
Amman,
Jordan.
Critics of the privatisation of water recall, however, that
Suez -
Mestrallet's company - along with Vivendi, form part of the World
Water
Council (WWC), which, together with international institutions
such as
the World Bank, has been advocating precisely that: the
privatisation of
water.
Ricardo Petrella, professor at the University of Louvain,
Belgium, and
one of the world's leading researchers on the subject, recalls
that the
World Forum on Water, that took place in the Dutch city of The
Hague in
March 2000, and organised by the WWC, overtly proposed the
commercialisation of water through a world wide private oligopoly.
This global oligopoly already exists and is formed by Suez,
Vivendi,
along with eight other private British and U.S. companies,
including
Thames Water, Biwater, and others.
"During the 1990s, an international general staff on water was
established around the WWC, in which the private multinational
enterprises belonging to this oligopoly are represented," Petrella
said.
"This means that the international committee that studies the
global
problem of water is at the same time partially controlled by the
companies that eventually would profit from the solutions the
committee
proposes," Petrella added.
Petrella recalled that the so called "integrated water
resources
management" proposed by the WWC strongly advocates "handling water
as
just another merchandise, whose just price can only be set by the
market."
Another critic of the privatisation thesis, Mohammed Larbi
Bouguerra, a
Tunisian researcher and water expert at the Paris based non
governmental
organization ATTAC, recalled that the World Bank has even advanced
the
increase of water prices to force a reduction of demand.
"Of course," Bouguerra said, "an increase in water prices would
only
force the poorest people to reduce their water consumption. The
richest
consumers will always have enough money to wash their cars and
fill
their swimming pools."
According to The World Water Forum of The Hague document access
to water
was defined as a universal need as opposed to a human right.
"The participants thought that defining the access to water as
a human
right would restrict the freedom of the private institutions
involved in
the resource's management," Petrella explained.
In a communique, issued on the celebration of the World Water
Day the
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation
(UNESCO)
emphasised that access to water has always been a crucial element
of any
development strategy.
Today, UNESCO said, at any given time, about half the people
living in
developing countries suffer from water-related illnesses such as
diarrhoea, parasitic infections, river blindness and malaria.
"These diseases kill about five million people each year,
especially
children under the age of five," UNESCO added.
Therefore, UNESCO's Director General Koichiro Matsuura warned
that a
water crisis is looming, and urged to integrate "scientific,
ethical and
social sound principles (in the global management of water) to
secure a
sustainable water world for the generations to come."
UNESCO recalled that the global demand for water has increased
more than
six fold over the past century - more than doubling the rate of
population growth.
This disproportionate growth illustrates the water crisis,
UNESCO says: "Without sound management of water resources and related
ecosystems,
two-thirds of humanity will suffer from moderate to severe
shortages by
the year 2025," which might lead to new inter state conflicts.
Critics of the privatisation thesis concede that in the past
state
control over water sources has led to wars. But, on the other
hand, the
privatisation of water is also related to rampant corruption, the
critics said.
As a proof, they recalled the long history of collusion between
the
French companies managing water, and the country's leading
political
parties.
Therefore, Petrella said, the solution to the water crisis can
only be
"to create a new public service managing water beyond national
territorial levels, based upon a world contract in which ethical
criteria reign over business, to guarantee that the local
communities
directly define the orientation of water services."
Petrella admitted that this new global contract would only be
possible
"if there is a strong mobilisation of the people."
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